so at least for the transitional period, why not number paragraphs? page-breaks have *always* been strange and arbitrary, even in the world of pure print. that’s why students were always instructed to all purchase the same edition of a textbook: so page numbers would always have the same meaning. line-numbering is conventional in the publication of literature; unfortunately, it is just as arbitrary and mess-up-able as page numbering. but units inherent to the text were numbered, we’d be in decent shape, because paragraph breaks do not typically change with text layout. yeah, the idea seems like ‘phase 0.5′ or lower; but if one considers line-numbering of verse, and the fine-tuned numbering of passages in scripture, and then compares it with systems of tagging and indexing used today, the idea expresses a data-management principle which, while useful from the first moment of its inception, was also many centuries *ahead* of its time.